McMorris, Jenny 1946-2002

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McMORRIS, Jenny 1946-2002

PERSONAL:

Born 1946; died of a brain tumor November 5, 2002.

CAREER:

Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, England, archivist, 1985-2002.

WRITINGS:

The Warden of English: The Life of H. W. Fowler, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

As an archivist at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Jenny McMorris had ample access to the letters and papers of Henry Watson Fowler, whose Dictionary of Modern English Usage has been continually in print since its first publication in 1926. Known simply as "Fowler's," this work has been an influential guide for English writers and journalists for most of a century, alternately embraced and condemned, but always consulted due to its author's determination to steer between sloppy writing and a rigid attachment to archaic forms and rules. McMorris published The Warden of English: The Life of H. W. Fowler, the first full-length biography of the famed grammarian, to coincide with the seventy-fifth anniversary of Fowler's best-known work.

"Do the life and times of this curious individual provide for an interesting book? By and large they do," concluded Report Newsmagazine contributor Virginia Byfield. Not that the life was terribly dramatic. After seventeen years as a somewhat gloomy and pedantic schoolmaster in Yorkshire, he retired to Guernsey to write and grow tomatoes with his brother Frank. The two produced a translation of the works of Lucian that impressed the editors at Oxford University Press, and they were tapped to produce "concise" and "pocket" preludes for the massive Oxford English Dictionary. Sensing that the public longed for an equally definitive guide to grammar and style, Fowler produced the work that now goes simply by his name. In addition to noting Fowler's dedication to work and family, McMorris chronicles his eccentricities, in particular his odd attitude toward money. He often insisted on taking less than Oxford offered for his pieces, objected to the practice of Christmas bonuses, and refused to ever write again for the Spectator after they paid him for an essay they decided not to publish. She also covers his decision, at age fifty-six, to join the British army in 1915. (He briefly saw action on the frontlines.) "While shy on bells and whistles, this is a thorough biography," wrote Library Journal contributor Scott Hightower. For Harper's contributor Guy Davenport, McMorris's book "is an affectionate, hero-worshiping book that convincingly pictures the Great Grammarian, who swam and ran a mile every morning of the year, lost an eye to lexicography, and didn't think you went to hell for splitting the infinitive, as quite a lovable old cooter."

Sadly, McMorris died of a brain tumor shortly after publication of her biography. In a tribute to her long and productive work as an archivist, Elizabeth Knowles noted on the Oxford English Dictionary Newsletter online: "Any future historian of the OED will owe a tremendous debt to Jenny for her ordering and indexing of the OED Archives. Those of us who knew her will remember also her ability to communicate the interest and excitement she found in her work."